As I sit on the balcony, gazing into the sunset, the rhythmic sound of waves, crashing softly on the beach, provides the soundtrack. Kids, laughing and playing, pierce the air with joy. Couples stroll, hand-in-hand, into the heavy air that coats the evening breeze.

I am at the Naples Beach Hotel in Naples, Florida. Life is beautiful.

There is just one thing…. For local businesses, the inquiries have slowed. The phones ring less frequently.

You see Naples is on the West Coast of Florida…. the Gulf Coast of Florida. You’ve heard about the BP Oil Spill, haven’t you?

Newsflash: THERE IS NO OIL HERE!! And it is projected at a 1% chance that this area will see any oil.

Yet people listen and watch cable news with one ear and one eye, if that much. It’s maddening enough that businesses is the center of the actual tragedy have to suffer. But why should this area, and others, suffer, too.

Not wanting to wait for the public relations cavalry, some area businesses started a blog: The Coast Is Clear Naples. It just has a few posts and pictures, so far, but it’s a beginning. It brings voice to this beautiful region of Florida and explains to the world that Naples is Open-For-Business.

Tomorrow, I will teach a seminar on social media and give a presentation for a membership drive, to members and guests of the National Association of Wedding Professionals – Naples Chapter. It may seem unlikely to some that a band of mostly small business owners can make sufficient noise to bring business to their community.

I, for one, don’t doubt it for a second. After all, they’ve taken the first step, in the right direction. Hear the rippling waves roar.

Visit Naples!

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

Share on Facebook

The Wedding Marketing Authority, Andy Ebon is en route from the the DJ Think Tank Conference in Miami to the National Association of Wedding Professionals, Naples Chapter.

The afternoon seminar (registration at 2:30pm, 3-6pm) topic will be: Building A Focused Social Media Strategy.

Andy will also give a talk for the chapter’s general membership meeting, which begins at 6:30pm. The presentation is titled: Success By Association.

Both events will be held at The Naples Beach Hotel , 851 Gulf Shore Blvd North, Naples, Florida.

Share on Facebook

I’ve seen Tony Schwartz once, in 40 years (at a 20-year high school reunion), but I’ve been reading his work for more than 30. You might not recognize his name, but it probably sounds familiar. Just over 20 years ago, it was Tony who was the writer for Donald Trump’s “The Art of the Deal.”

Yes, THAT Tony Schwartz.

In 2004, Tony and business partner, Jim Loehr published: “The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal.”

For me, their research and writing obliterated the overdone topic of time management. The message was clear: Your mental and physical freshness determines that quality and productivity of your work. The book is peppered with profiles of people and their work-life balance issues. You see a little of yourself in many of these case studies.

Just recently, Tony published a follow up work, “The Way We’re Working, Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance.“

I pre-ordered it from Amazon.com, read it when it arrived, read it again, and read it, once more, on the plane from Las Vegas to Miami.

The basic message is uncomplicated: We are built to work in sprints, not marathons. Knowing it and doing it are, of course, two different things.

Since reading The Power of Full Engagement, I confess to being thrown out of rhythm. Life’s events can take a toll: The final illness, relocation, and death of my father being the first dramatic event. Concurrently, my illness and passing of my girlfriend’s father. Concurrently (yes, really), being diagnosed with Diabetes. My girlfriend’s car accident, the day following her dad’s funeral. The lightning fast passing of her closest friend, Elle, from a rare blood disease, only a couple of months later.

All in all, 2006 was a lousy year. We stopped counting the deaths after the number passed ten. The shocking part was losing friends as young as 36. For me, all of that was followed by two major surgeries. I’ll leave out the details.

Suffice it to say that the last year has been, mostly trouble free. And, despite some significant success and progress, since then, I’d be kidding you if I told you “I’ve fully gotten my groove back.”

The ongoing challenge is managing the effects of Diabetes. It is ALL about managing energy. It’s about diet, exercise, medication, stress, and pacing.

As I go the process of recapturing my rhythm, I will be rereading Tony’s latest work, until I can recite it from memory. I recommend it highly. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, but how we manage our energy determines our success and enjoyment of life.

Thanks, Tony!

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

Share on Facebook

Just finished attending, and speaking at, DJ Think Tank. This is an elite group of entertainment companies that gather, twice yearly. I have been working with the group since its inception in 2003, and contributing my rare blend of DJ industry experience and up-to-date marketing experience.

I was slotted for a 90-minute catch-all presentation of marketing and technology. Some reminder; but mostly solid explanation of recent developments, and some unveiled of the latest in technology, marketing, and software.

In preparing the presentation, I had a hunch about the iPad and how to cover it in this presentation (I have not bought mine, yet, for a variety of reasons that are not particularly important to this point. I do expect to buy one in the next couple of months).

First, it was interesting to look around the room and see what laptops people were using. Apple has a market share of 10% or less in laptops. In this room, one could see MacBooks in the hands of about 60% of the attendees. That was unusual.

My slide showed a handful of iPads and a headline stating: It’s an iPad world. I told a few stories abut what I have read and observed, and conversations I’ve had recently, with people who have been using an iPad.

Then, I asked for a show of hands: How many people own an iPad? Only about five hands went up. Inside, I was disappointed and thought, for a moment, that the next 30 minutes might go ‘in the tank.’ Not so fast my friend.

I asked the iPad owners how they were using their tech-toy in their businesses and room fairly exploded with ideas and applications. For reasons of confidentiality, I am not going to share all their brilliant ideas, but I am going to share two items that were very instructive.

1) I asked my friend, Ron, to share his experience about his iPad and his 7-year old. Ron has had his iPad for about 10 days. After having it just a few minutes, he put it in the hands of his daughter, and she went to work. She turned to him and asked, “Can I download this game…. it’s free..”

“How did you know about where to get the games?” he asked. “They show it on the commercials, Daddy.”

So much for that mystery. Within minutes, this youngster was using the iPad without hesitation or instruction. Shockingly intuitive.

2) At the end of 30 minutes of iPad sharing and  brainstorming, I asked the BIG QUESTION. “After this brief discussion about actual and possible uses of the iPad, by show of hands, how many expect to buy at least one iPad in the near future?” In a split second, the hands of three-quarters of the room shot up.

Owning a piece of new technology is not the point. The point is understanding the various ways one can utilize it to stand out and garner a competitive edge.

How are you using the iPad or any recent technology to gain a competitive edge?

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Group

Share on Facebook

We have heard volumes, over the last couple of years about recession. Many people in business, today, had not experienced a significant economic downturn in their lifetime. The massive upheaval, of recent times, has thrown both business owners and individuals, into turmoil.

The companion word to recession is deflation, and it bears better understanding and discussion.

The Definition of Deflation

Deflation is occurring when asset and consumer prices continue to fall. This may seem like a great thing to consumers, except that the cause for deflation is a long-term drop in demand. Unfortunately, a drop in demand means that a recession is already underway, with job losses, declining wages, and an ongoing decline in the value of your home and your stock portfolio. Deflation is a result of businesses dropping prices in a desperate attempt to get people to buy their products.

Most business people will agree with these profiles, but almost as many probably believe that market conditions do not apply to their business. That is blue-sky thinking of the worst kind.

Examples of industries that wear ‘supply and demand’ on their sleeve are categories such as: Real Estate, Travel, Hotels, Airlines, among others. When big business catches a cold, small business gets pneumonia.

Living in Las Vegas gives one a magnified view of these factors, and the financial relationship between big and small businesses.

While a small business may grouse about not being able to close sales at 2007 levels. Go ahead and complain. I look at first class hotels, such as Bellagio and Wynn Las Vegas, among many others that were charging $350+ per night, and now, frequently ask $129 for the same room, including some credit give backs for other outlets within the hotel.

Just this week, a new hotel, the Cosmopolitan begins booking its doors to 3000 new rooms that will opening December 15, 2010. This,  in a city that would benefit more from a room reduction. The hotel sits on the west side of the strip, shoehorned between the Bellagio and the new City Center complex. Cosmopolitan has no affiliation with a larger hotel group in Las Vegas, so it’s decidedly on its own.

One of my all-time favorites, Southwest Airlines, bucked the industry trend of charging for checked luggage. At a recent shareholders meeting, it was learned that the strategy had earned them an additional 1% in market share. That single percent, in the airline industry is worth a boatload of gross sales and profit.

So what about you? We, as a country, and the wedding industry, too, have been mired in recession, and yes, a deflation for a considerable amount of time.

Have you made the necessary adjustments in your business, and more important, in your thinking, to reconfigure, reframe, reorganize. One can’t just slash prices. It takes massive planning and reassessment to address a plethora of issues.

For me, Exhibit A & B are two of the top hotels in this city… or any city, Bellagio and Wynn Las Vegas. Their radical pricing, to keep occupancy at acceptable levels, tells me that no business is immune.

And for the upside, where there are problems, there are usually opportunities.

It is not a time for tweaks and adjustments. In many cases, it is time for massive action.

What massive action are you taking?

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

===

014f58ad3c6f488dbe89b93e9f65d1a4

Share on Facebook

This post is the fifth of a recap series about a meeting of the Las Vegas Wedding Network. Seven brides spoke and answered questions about their wedding planning experience.

There comes a point for many brides where they become overwhelmed. For all the excitement and possibilities, when a bride begins to realize that she has lost control of the wedding day, it’s scary, upsetting, and potentially devastating.

You can hear that emotion from a newlywed who starts a sentence with… “If I had it to do again…”

There probably are not many brides out there who wouldn’t change something, if they could do it over. The issues are really these:

• Were you able to enjoy the day?
• Were you able to interact with your family and guests?
• Did you have to endure unnecessary family drama?
• Were the problems that came up, or mistakes that occurred, avoidable? If so, how?
• Were those problems or mistakes minor, or major, magnitude?

The surprising consensus, to me (and I’m sure many others in the audience), was NOT that bride’s admitted that they would have been well served by a wedding consultant…. but, that they didn’t realize everything that a wedding consultant could do for them.

SOUNDS LIKE A BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY!!

In a presentation I made last September, at the Wedding MBA, I extolled the virtues of competent, well-trained wedding consultants. I sincerely believe that the process of wedding planning has become too complex and overwhelming for a one-time bride. There is too much information, too many choices, and too many ways to run off the rails in a big way.

Whether a bride is looking for a wedding consultant to carry out her vision, or lend more design ideas to the day, from my view, prevent really bad mistakes is the biggest value of a neutral party.

More than one bride expressed that their family members and wedding party had become a handful or worse. They voiced, to a one, that having that delegating some of the wrangling to a wedding consultant would have freed them up to enjoy themselves, and leave the drama behind.

My conclusion: This is a public relations and education issue that, if conquered, should translate into more work for qualified wedding consultants.

There are now many organizations, associations, and institutions of higher learning training and certifying wedding consultants. Exactly what are they doing to educate the public? The various wedding entertainment shows have their place. Inspiration, mainly. However, entertainment is not a substitute for education of the public by the organizations that train wedding consultants.

THAT would appear to be the challenge from observations from this panel discussion and others, and the professional opinions of many wedding professionals.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

Share on Facebook

This post is the third of a recap series about a meeting of the Las Vegas Wedding Network. Seven brides spoke and answered questions about their wedding planning experience. –

As the audience soaked up the question to, and answers from, the panel of 7 brides (no brothers), one could tell what those listening wanted to hear.

Where you getting information, what value did you put on it, and what influenced your decision making?

Some of the discussion points included:

• All-Inclusive Venues – Brides that selected these where short on time, or overwhelmed by process, so this seemed like a convenient route. But as they moved forward, they opted out on some of the venue-exclusive-vendors, and chose ones that suited them better. They viewed this as an unfortunate excess expenditure.
• Credibility – Brides talk to brides, who are in the planning process during a similar period. This was both in person (at bridal shows and business showcases) as well as on wedding chat boards. The tipping point here was mostly on the negative. Brides were put off by one business bad mouthing other businesses, and dropped them like a hot rock, when hearing that from other brides. in my opinion, they put good value on reading lots of reviews from former brides and too much value on the opinion of brides-in-process. The latter has not had a complete vendor experience. They don’t know the final result, so it appeared to me that was, at best, incomplete information.
• Reciprocal Links: Brides put significant value of a businesses that appeared to work together on a regular basis, as shown by link directories on their websites. One bride said her result from working with a cluster wedding vendors, such as these was: “Like having seven wedding planners working together, in concert. They were so comfortable communicating with each other, I didn’t have to give anything a thought.”

Here is the big question that wasn’t asked:

In your planning experience, when it came to Preferred Vendor Lists, Exclusive Vendor Lists, All-Inclusive arrangements, did anyone explain a financial arrangement between venue and vendor?

The issue for me, is an ethical one: Transparency

A venue can represent that they only working with vendors that know their property, its guidelines, and perform well for the client (OK… that sounds pretty good). However, if they are receiving a significant referral fee for this arrangement, they formula changes. Is the bride truly getting access to the wedding vendor, appropriately suited for her wants and desires. Or, is a bride over-limited because the host venue is raking in invisible revenue, without disclosure?

Disclosure and Transparency: Two important words that didn’t come up in the discussion. Wish I had remembered to ask the question. It’s the kind of verbal grenade I love throwing into the middle of a room and watching people squirm in their sites.

I’m not a wedding vendor, these days, so I can do that.

Would love your comments on Transparency and Disclosure, if you have the gumption to speak up in a public forum.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

Share on Facebook

Very pleased to announce that my column, The Andy Method will debut in the July 2010 issue of Wedlock Magazine. I encourage you to take a look at this preview video, and consider subscribing to the magazine, webcasts, and accompanying educational opportunities.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

Share on Facebook

Men and their tools. In our minds, we form an image of a man at Sears, drooling over the latest drill or gadget. Kind of funny… Somewhat sweeping, in its generalization.

One can have the latest tool for home improvement, but if you don’t know how to use it, the effort will be a failure.

The same is true in the wedding industry. The tools are wedding marketing media: magazine ads, social media, bridal shows, websites, postcards, and much more.

When a business has a marketing failure, it MUST have been the medium: the magazine, the wedding show, a lack of traffic to the website, or whatever the medium in question.

My response to this:

“Laying the blame on the wedding marketing medium is usually off-point. Far more often than not, the culprit is failure to have a well-crafted message.”

Business people are easily drawn to the new shiny object. The new bridal show in town, the new publication, the latest social media tool.

That’s all very nice. There is always something new to carry your message.

But in the end, if you don’t know how to swing a hammer, it doesn’t matter how shiny and new the hammer is. Why not take a lesson or two on using the hammer. In the case of wedding marketing, develop better ads, really prepare for a bridal show, keep your website current, have a Facebook strategy, and don’t let your blog get lost in the weeds.

Come to Wedding MBA and learn more about swinging wedding marketing hammer.

September 21-23, Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

Share on Facebook

Every decision you make about advertising, networking, printing, website, social media, and a host of other opportunities, comprises your total wedding marketing effort.

The question of the day is this:

How much dedicated planning to you put into your wedding marketing effort? In a day, week, month, or throughout the year.

Before you answer, let’s examine the word, dedicated. My notion is that dedicated time means uninterrupted and focused. By yourself, or in a meeting with other key people.

If you are making these decisions one-by-one, then you don’t really have a wedding marketing plan. It takes a global view of your sales, leads, appointments, closing ratio, as well as the elements of each promotional effort to assemble and manage a cohesive wedding marketing plan.

The final question is this:

Do you have a cohesive wedding marketing effort, in a written plan, or seat-of-the-pants wedding marketing decision making?

Your thoughts are welcome.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

Share on Facebook